Helmet methodology

[richsc]

Do you fancy proposing it for a paper?

Yes, that is what I proposed to the mods, and forgot to mention here. As Jasper says, somewhere someone has measured helmets, but not with any consistency or methodology. There is no way to actually compare helmets for head size, as you mention, which seems an incredible oversight by the academics, and something I"m sure the anthropologists would not have overlooked.
First is to see if this is a complete taxonomy of the helmet. I was considering that it has to be able to describe everything from a Montefortino to the Intercisa, and all the bells and whistles like bowl reinforcements, which I think can be lumped into "decorations", which is maybe not the best word, but a start.
It would be good to find some way to present this methodology. Jasper, any ideas?

You may note that the descriptions in the other post are the beginnings of an XML Schema, which is how I propose doing this.

[Praefectusclassis]

As I said Rich, I think you'd have to look at as many helmets as possible first, before you can make such a typology. I have no objection - for instance - to adding a tabpage to the current helmet database for all those items.

[Tarbicus]

and all the bells and whistles like bowl reinforcements, which I think can be lumped into "decorations", which is maybe not the best word, but a start.

How about Primary parts (bowl, neckguard, cheekpieces, anything that forms the primary protection over an area of the head) and Secondary parts (browband, crossguard, etc)?

[richsc]

Obviously I left off the face piece. Looking over the RAT helmet DB, there are a lot of other attributes, but each helmet that exists is unique, and should have a unique identifier, though I'm not sure if that is a number or another designation. One unique attribute will be the aggregation of the measurements: these in ratio will be a unique identifier, at least unless somone squishes the thing. The taxonomy can be an extension of the existing RAT helmet DB.

Helmet
-unique identifier
-Type
-Robinson
-continental
-provenance
-publication
-location (that can change too frequently I suppose)
-taxonomy
-bowl
-neckguard
-cheek piece(s)
-face

so a 'helmet' find can be just a cheekpiece, or a bowl, as a single artifact.

[adamparsons]

This sounds great, certainly standard methodologies are the only way to progress!

All aretefacts now are alwaysd drawn and photographed with a scale- or should be we always have, but sadly many of the older and best pictures of helmets haven't!

Can I just put forward a few caveats that I'm sure you can get round.
1) how would you deal with/factor in any distortion to curves/profiles/measurements through deposition in the ground and pressure/damage etc, to get the original measurement.

2)How would you deal with fragmentary elements of helmets bowls etc (which may have been irregular/unsymentrical shape remember) How do you know for certain some bits come from a certain part of a bowl?

3)And would you take weight measurements, and how would you factor in missing patches and or corrosion product?

4)How would you extrapolate head size- was all padding the same thickness, was extra added to the top?

All sounds very interesting! I tried similar during my thesis a few years back for 8th-11th century swords, but there were too many unknown elements. weight was the worst, weight is the most crucial factor to a sword, but missing fragments and corrsosion meant there was nothing meaningfull I could say other than in NOW weights XX and might have been this heavy if reconstructed like this?

Good luck!
Adam

[richsc]

It seems to me you have to take the helmet as found, with warps and breaks and all, as a specific artifact, rather than try to figure out how it might have looked. Once measured, it is unique and can be up to others to work from the original to figure out what it might have really looked like or weighed.

The idea of head size will be a great paper in itself.

Fragments will just have to be treated as unique, but where they come from is a good question; might have to just assign a fragment to a section as a preliminary (good point to add as an attribute too) assessment if there is ambiguity.

[richsc]

I have been quiet on this one for a few weeks, but have been working on an XML schema, pondering tradeoffs between attributes and parent/child hierarchies. However, I did think it would be worthwhile to find out 'officially' if anyone has thought of this methodology before. Hence my letter to the BM below. I hope it isn't overstating things.



Dear Sirs,

As an amateur enthusiast of Roman military studies, I have found through the internet hundreds of other enthusiasts, scholars as well as amateurs, who spend a great deal of time researching and discussing artifacts from all the museums and collections of Europe. Debates and arguments are heated, but can usually be resolved with reference to original texts or objects.

However, a problem has arisen in the matter of Roman military helmets
involving formal and precise descriptions of them. Since the publication of H Russell Robinson's "Armour of Imperial Rome" descriptions of helmets have all tended to use words like 'shallow' or 'steep'. This seemed to satisfy everyone until recently. People who have actually held helmets would use such words to describe them, but they are in contrast to others who use different words. This hardly seems scientific, and it subsequently seems amazing that researchers and scholars have never bothered to measure Roman helmets, or for that matter, apparently any other helmet, be it Greek, Celtic, etc.

As a result, we are preparing a methodology for precisely describing helmets and their component parts. My first inclination is to begin with the
measurements common to physical anthropologists, such as nasion-basion. But I did not want to re-invent the wheel, and felt that the British Museum would be the first to ask if such a methodology currently exists. Even more interesting would be to ask if the methodology does not exist, why?

I appreciate in advance any response you may have which will help in this
matter.

Sincerely,

Richard Campbell
Alexandria, Virginia
USA

[Praefectusclassis]

Interesting to see if and what they answer.

[Tarbicus]

(Bumpity bump)

Rich, did the BM get back to you? Or is this a case for everyone on RAT bombarding them with your letter (which I'm sure could be drafted for everyone to print out and sign) :wink: